Can CRISPR–Cas9 Boost Intelligence?
By Jim Kozubek,
Scientific American
| 09. 23. 2016
Not now, certainly, but maybe someday—although there are plenty of hurdles to overcome first
A letter was recently published in Nature on 329,000 young people identifying 74 genetic variants—spelling mistakes in single nucleotides in the six billion letter human genome—which can be used to predict nearly 20 percent of the variation in school years completed, a quantitative trait of fortitude which is correlated to general intelligence, and which you can learn about by sequencing your own genome.
Staple that to your college application.
Even before the “molecular age,” we were on guard for the slightest tips that show we are more or less valued than our peers. But there was also caution from the academics that there was actually very little we could do to leverage our biology for improvement. In 1924, the Harvard geneticist William Castle quipped that “we are scarcely as yet in a position to do more than make ourselves ridiculous in this matter. We are no more in a position to control eugenics than the tides of the ocean.”
Enter Crispr-Cas9, the first pair of tiny molecular...
Related Articles
Several recent Biopolitical Times posts (1, 2, 3, 4) have called attention to the alarmingly rapid commercialization of “designer baby” technologies: polygenic embryo screening (especially its use to purportedly screen for traits like intelligence), in vitro gametogenesis (lab-made eggs and sperm), and heritable genome editing (also termed embryo editing or reproductive gene editing). Those three, together with artificial wombs, have been dubbed the “Gattaca stack” by Brian Armstrong, CEO of the cryptocurrency company...
Alice Wong, founder of the Disability Visibility Project, MacArthur Genius, liberationist, storyteller, writer, and friend of CGS, died on November 14. Alice shone a bright light on pervasive ableism in our society. She articulated how people with disabilities are limited not by an inability to do things but by systemic segregation and discrimination, the de-prioritization of accessibility, and the devaluation of their lives.
We at CGS learned so much from Alice about disability justice, which goes beyond rights...
By Adam Feuerstein, Stat | 11.20.2025
The Food and Drug Administration was more than likely correct to reject Biohaven Pharmaceuticals’ treatment for spinocerebellar ataxia, a rare and debilitating neurodegenerative disease. At the very least, the decision announced Tuesday night was not a surprise to anyone paying attention. Approval...
By Lucy Tu, The Guardian | 11.05.2025
Beth Schafer lay in a hospital bed, bracing for the birth of her son. The first contractions rippled through her body before she felt remotely ready. She knew, with a mother’s pit-of-the-stomach intuition, that her baby was not ready either...
